Hitching France Pt. 12 – Journey to La Rochelle

I was always anxious to get out and get moving down the road but it was humbling to feel that it was out of my control and that I needed to be patient because I never knew when that ride would come, or if it would come. I was lucky though as I never had to wait too long and after 20 minutes or so a large van pulls up, the back seats down and I toss my bag in then open the passenger door only to look behind and see two more hitchhikers walking up. I felt kinda guilty that I had a ride and they would have to wait but even the young woman shouted out that she would’ve taken them if she had had space in the back. I was thankful though because this ride was one that I will never forget.

It turned out she was a comedian and local actor in Rennes and she was heading to Nantes to visit a friend’s art exhibition. She had such an energizing personality and was beautiful in her own hippie way. She had written plays with her friend and spent time in the theater acting and making people laugh. You can even find the trailer to one of her plays here*. We talked about politics and travel. She had done some hitchhiking around France, Germany, Spain and around eastern Europe. I even rolled a cigarette for her because she was attempting to roll one while flying down the auto-route. We had a great time together en route and we shared stories about our lives.

She dropped me off in the northern tip of Nantes in the late afternoon which turned out to be a little bit problematic as I was continuing south and it was around 3 or 4 p.m. I walked up to a McDonald’s just about 100 meters from my drop off point to get a snack and some wifi. I looked over the map and thought that my best bet would be to head to back to the corner where she dropped me off and hope I could get lucky that someone would be heading south. When I returned to the corner I found another hitchhiker a few years older than me already there and actively panning for a ride. He would take a few steps up as the cars were passing and shake his thumb up high pleading for their glance with his sign extended in front of him. I had no choice but to pass him and try my luck closer to the exit. As I approached him he saw my sign, stopped and told me I wouldn’t get a ride south from there because there were too few cars heading that direction from where we were at. He told me to follow him and we crossed the road to the tram station just on the other side. He gave me a bunch of instructions and told me where my best chances would be but unfortunately I missed a good bit of them due to my somewhat poor French. Plus, I was getting a little anxious about the approaching evening and how far away I still was from where I wanted to go.

Anyway, I decided to get on the tram as he said and head south into the city but due to some protests the tram line stopped about halfway. I had one eye on my map and one eye on the mass of people and decided to follow them down another street to some bus stops. I could only guess that one of them would take me close to the road that I needed to reach. I hopped on one which began to head the wrong way and I got off after one stop, walking down another street to a bus stop that which seemed to be constricted by a one way road to head south. I was right and I road the bus a ways down south eventually hopping off and finding a spot close to the A83. There was a lot of traffic as it was rush hour and within a few minutes I was picked up by a young French student heading home after his classes. He studied philosophy and though he had never hitchhiked himself, he often picked hitchhikers up to help them down the road. He didn’t take me very far and he dropped me off on the auto-route which was a less than pleasant experience. The cars were going way too fast to notice me and there was not a lot of room for them to stop so after a few minutes I decided that it was a losing battle and began to walk up the exit to find a roundabout where cars would be moving much slower. If you’ve ever been standing on the edge of a highway you know that it’s a bit intimidating due to how fast the cars are really going.

Within a few minutes I reached the roundabout and… it was dead. There seemed to only be a car or two every five minutes or so but somehow after about twenty-five minutes of waiting an older gentleman picked me up and we were driving through some French back roads. He didn’t talk very much so the ride was rather quiet. I only picked up that he had done some hitchhiking a few times in the military some decades before and he was heading to Montaigu. He took me a decent ways south-west before depositing me on the side of the road once more. The sun was getting ready to set and I was in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. I remember peering off the side of the road onto the edge of a field where there was a line of trees, thinking that there was a good chance it would get dark and I’d have to pitch my tent there hidden from the road. Though, lo and behold, another car stopped for me and at least I wouldn’t be sleeping there. It was another older gentleman who didn’t speak much but mentioned he was heading to work at a restaurant where he would eventually drop me off nearby. He was blasting loud Celtic music with the windows down the whole time. He dropped me off at a slightly busier roundabout with what looked like a restaurant or two and some buildings around which was a decent change from the open countryside. However, it was really getting dark now and I told myself I’d only give it 15-20 minutes as a last-ditch effort before calling it quits and finding a place to stealth camp. But again, I lucked out and a girl in her late twenties pulled over to give me a lift. She said she was returning from visiting her boyfriend in Bretagne and was heading back home. It was starting to get late though, and she had made a reservation at a hotel just outside of La Roche-sur-Yon. She said that she would take me there and I could find another hotel nearby or take a room there. I had thought I would use my tent that night but since I wasn’t sure when my next opportunity to shower would be, I warmed up to the idea. We jammed to some music together and once we started to get close to her hotel, I saw a sign for a rather cheap room a quarter mile back down the road so we pulled into the parking lot and parted ways. It was a good location as the route I wanted to take to La Rochelle the next day was extremely close by.